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From the ARPANET to the Internet
A Study of the ARPANET TCP/IP Digest and of the Role of
Online Communication in the Transition from the ARPANET
to the Internet
by Ronda Hauben

Q&A:

> Hi. My name is Kaylie. I am 11 years old. I have homework and it relates to the history of the Internet. I am trying to find out what the very first IP address that was ever created. I have learned a bunch of stuff about it and ISI comes up a lot, so I am writing you. Can you help me find out what the very first IP address was in history? Thank you very much! Kaylie [Dec 16, 2006]

The Internet started in Sept. 1981 when a new set of protocols - rules for who talks when and how - began being used, called "TCP/IP". They were used on a network that had already been running since 1969, using an older protocol called "NCP". Current network addresses look like "128.9.176.20", which is ISI's webserver (www.isi.edu). The first network addresses all started with "10.", i.e., "10.0.0.1", and described everyone on the first ARPAnet (the precursor to the Internet). Those addresses aren't in use any more; they're reserved for 'tests' (RFC1918 describes this). The problem with picking a 'first' is that everyone who ran on the old NCP ARPAnet had an address that was converted to a 10.x.x.x address when TCP/IP was adopted in Sept. 1981. So technically everyone who had an NCP address in August 1981 had an equivalent IP address in Sept. 1981. The list you probably want is in RFC832, and lists a large number of 'first network addresses' that were used by Dec. 1982. Note that ISI is listed there, and at that time we used the old 10.x.x.x address, not the current 128.9.x.x set. PS - you can find the "RFCs" above using a search engine. RFCs, and their precursors called IENs are a great source for such history, but they can be a bit hard to read. -- Joe